The fire declared on Saturday in the town of Vall d’Uixó in Castellón remains active, having already devastated about 8,500 hectares and reaching an approximate perimeter of 72 kilometers. From the Advanced Command Post, the Valencian Generalitat’s Emergency Minister, Juan Carlos Valderrama, explained that during the night from Sunday to Monday “the spread has been contained,” but emphasized that the fire “is active, neither stabilized nor controlled.” The flames have already affected 80,000 people, including 16,000 evacuated and 65,000 confined in the municipalities of Vall d’Uixó (32,000 inhabitants), Onda (25,000), and Betxí (5,700).
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In the operation, the Valencian Generalitat has deployed 21 Forest Firefighter units from the three provinces of the Valencian Community: 12 from Castellón, 5 from Valencia, and 4 from Alicante. The deployment includes 17 ground units and 4 helicopter-transported units, in addition to other firefighting resources.
In the morning, aerial resources could not fly due to the smoke covering the area
During the morning, aerial resources could not operate because of a “thermal inversion” the previous night that kept the smoke throughout the morning, as Valderrama himself explained. In the afternoon, the 25 deployed in this emergency were able to fly continuously.
Meanwhile, the PMA operational director, Raúl Gil, noted that during the morning, ground work was reinforced in Betxí and Tales with critical points and also in Aín, and with the incorporation of aerial resources, the entire area was controlled and consolidated, so that “by nightfall we will have quite good meteorological prospects with a gentle terral wind from the west, which will allow us to work,” added the operational director. This wind is more humid, and for this last night, relative humidity was expected to reach 80 or 90%, which would facilitate the work of the firefighting teams.
Surveillance was especially intense in the area of Eslida, Montí, or the Montserrat urbanization in Betxí, where both aerial and ground resources operate. “We constantly have ground units to defend homes,” said Valderrama, who valued “the constant collaboration between the State General Administration, the Valencian Generalitat, the provincial consortia of the diputations, as well as the major municipalities and all services, the coordination and collaboration we are maintaining.”
For her part, the Government delegate in the Valencian Community, Pilar Bernabé, emphasized that “we can tell the citizens and all neighbors, the more than 16,000 residents who have been evacuated from their towns and also the more than 65,000 people confined in their municipalities, that they can be assured that the administrations are working in a coordinated manner on this extinguishing.”
President Pérez Llorca also valued the excellent collaboration between administrations, with special mention of the mayors of the affected municipalities, when carrying out the evacuations and confinements decreed “in the tough moments we experienced on the first day.”
Pedro Sánchez, who visited the Advanced Command Post, reiterated his call for consensus to agree on a State pact to address the consequences of climate change. “Of course, we have to be in the response against the common enemy, which is fire,” Sánchez stated, “but as the president said, we have to be in the recovery.”
The 16,000 people who had to leave their homes in 18 municipalities and urbanizations in the south of the province of Castellón have spent their third night away, with 700 of them in spaces set up in Nules, Moncofa, Onda, and Segorbe, since the vast majority were in their second homes and have returned to their residences. Late in the afternoon, residents evacuated from the neighborhoods of Toledo, Carbonaire, Sant Antoni, and Sant de Josep in La Vall d’Uixó were allowed to return to their homes.
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